FAO targets eight Cross River LGAs for cocoa, oil palm production

The Food and Agriculture Organisation has said eight local government areas in Cross River will benefit from its sustainable cocoa and oil palm production project. The five-year project, funded by the Global Environmental Facilities through FAO, covers Akpabuyo, Odukpani, Akamkpa, Biase, Ogoja, Boki, Ikom and Etung Local Government Areas. The Chief Technical Adviser for the FAO-GEF initiative, Adebayo Shittu, said in Calabar on Wednesday that the project had Cross River and Ondo states as the main beneficiaries. Mr Shittu spoke at a training programme for enumerators on baseline tools for agroecology performance enumeration. He said that the project was aimed at promoting integrated landscape management and a sustainable food system in the Niger Delta region. The technical adviser said that all eight local government areas would benefit from the second, third and fourth components of the initiative.

“These three components of the project are sustainable food systems, restoration of degraded landscapes, and monitoring and evaluation,” he said. Mr Shittu further said that the first component, which aimed to develop integrated landscape management, would target Akamkpa and Boki local government areas. “These are the core cocoa and oil palm-producing areas in the state with massive forest reserves. We need to know the current situation of the farmers and their key challenges. We need a deeper understanding of the issues to make evidence-based decisions. Our data collection will be a mobile phone-based survey called ‘kobo collect’ that does not necessarily require the internet except during data upload. The intervention will, among others, support smallholder farmers in acquiring title to land. This will enable them to access credit. They will also help in the establishment of community and private sector-led nurseries and even extension services,” he said. He stated that the survey would be household-based, with qualitative data gathering procedures to be undertaken by enumerators domiciled within the communities. (NAN)